Capture
Peggy had not met Steve Rogers during the Project Rebirth candidate trails. She should have, but she did not. She was called back to Europe before they took place because in her spare time she had been dabbling at Hydra’s newest code and cracked it. The SSR wanted her in field, so she’d be able to quickly translate commandeered intelligence. She’d personally been responsible for locating and destroying seven Hydra bases by the time Doctor Erskine had been killed.
The news of his death had been devastating. Peggy thought well of and generally liked the man she’d snuck out of Nazi Germany a year earlier. At the time, she’d been skeptical of her orders to rescue him at all cost, but as she’d gotten to know him, she’d come to share his vision. Not the US government’s desire for an army of super soldiers that has always sounded frighteningly similar to the Nazi’s desire for a master race. No, Peggy had shared Erskine’s desire for a few select people, who embodied the best that humanity had to offer, being enhanced through the serum. Allowing them to take their rightful place as the leaders of men, and hopefully save them all.
But Erskine had died, and they sent what was his legacy and great hope off on a bonds sale tour for the USO. They gave Steve Rogers a ridiculous uniform, a useless shield, and the silly stage name of Captain America. Peggy had assumed it couldn’t have gotten worse than that, but then Rogers had defected when on tour in Italy. At first, it had been reported that he’d gone AWOL to rescue a friend in a unit caught behind enemy lines.
If only. If only, that had been true and he’d had been killed in that valiant effort. It would have been better for them all. But, Steve Rogers hadn’t rescued anyone. He’d turned traitor.
Joining the Red Skull, Rogers helped Hydra renew their efforts to create their own army of super soldiers. It was a damn dystopian nightmare, where captured allied troops and personnel—especially woman—were forced into experiments against their will. A good number of them were “mated” in bizarre marriage rituals meant to give the breeding program the look of something other than sexual slavery.
Hydra had been conducting inhumane eugenics experiments since the beginning of the war, but they had picked up pace since Rogers’ defection. Many allied personnel were opting to kill themselves rather than be raped, or worse, by Hydra soldiers and scientists. Peggy, herself, had been issued an emergency cyanide pill.
The rumors and the intelligence all indicated that Hydra was close to producing an army of men with Rogers’ speed, strength, and stamina. And that to speed things along, they were looking for someone to breed Rogers with.
No one had said so yet, but the sense of a lost cause was in the air. Peggy didn’t have to be told that they were looking at defeat. Hydra was gaining ground on them scientifically, and on land, every day.
Then, hope came over the wire. Peggy had been on duty when an operative identifying themselves as the Artist provided advanced warning of an attack in a code that she’d once used with Dr. Erskine. With no agent in the field assigned that name, the warning had been heeded, but cautiously. And thank god for that, because the Artist had been right. Their intel had saved more than 10,000 allied troops from being cut-off.
When Peggy had taken the message down, she’d identified herself as Agent 13. Thus beginning her relationship with the Artist. She was one of the few people within range who could translate their messages. And her push to get command to at least look into the intelligence the Artist had initially provided established a connection between them. The Artist soon insisted on relaying messages to her and her alone.
They provided intel as often as they could and their information was always correct, even if it was cautiously applied. Without any idea of just who the Artist was, and their reasons for supplying the valuable information, there was no true trust. All the Artist ever said about themselves was that they’d been in the unique position of being able to serve as a double agent, and had taken the opportunity of their own accord. Not exactly the kind of ground you wanted to risk so many lives on, but it was all they had. The Artist's intel had resulted in the few victories the Allies had recently been able to muster.
Because of her connection to the Artist, when Peggy’s unit had been ordered to evacuate there had been a major fight between Phillips and the higher-ups. She’s been ordered to stay in range of the Artists messages. Philips wanted her moved to safety with everyone else, but he’d been overruled.
Before he’d been forced to leave her with a small band of soldiers for protection, under orders to hide in the woods while relaying any messages from the Artist that came through, Philips had uncharacteristically pulled Peggy into a tight hug. The horror of what could happen to her was left unspoken between them.
Peggy and her small unit evaded capture for nearly a month. To her dismay, Peggy had been taken alive. A state she planned to be out of soon, as she had no intention of being handed off to be raped by some Hydra buffoon.
Lined up with the other captured woman—other “brides”—for the Hydra soldiers to select from, Peggy was planning on how best to take herself, and as many guards as possible, out as her last act. But a figure walked through the door and made her lose track of what she was doing.
It was Rogers. In the flesh. Tall. Strong. Traitorous.
Never in her life had Peggy wanted to hurt someone so much. She wanted to bite, spit, and claw at him for destroying all the hope that he was supposed to have symbolized. Rogers must have sensed her murderous gaze on him because he turned from the soldiers he was speaking with and looked directly at her. His pupils dilated at the sight of her.
She’d been so focused on Rogers, that Peggy hadn’t noticed Hydra soldiers selecting their mates. When a vicelike grip took a hold of her arm, she nearly took a swing on pure impulse, when Rogers stopped her short again by stepping towards her and saying, “No. That one is mine.”